Free Alien Hunter: Underworld by Whitley Strieber Page B

convince himself that he wasn’t afraid. He was very afraid.
    In the distant light from the hangar area and the low moon, the object shone like burnished steel. It was nothing like the disks he was used to seeing—not worn, not small, not clattering like an old truck. No matter his loathing of the aliens and their ways, this thing’s sleek form was beautiful to see.
    He realized that a tripod landing gear had come out of it, and it was now standing on the runway. There hadn’t been a sound nor the slightest suggestion of movement. A narrow line of light appeared in its base. This grew wider and brighter, until he could see part of an interior of featureless bright metal. Very slowly then, something began moving in the light, a form.
    â€œMy God,” he heard himself whisper. Hardly thinking of it, he drew his gun.
    â€œPut that away.”
    â€œDiana—”
    â€œIf they see that thing, we might die right here, right now. Both of us.”
    He holstered the pistol.
    A figure glided down in the column of light. He was expecting to see the thin form of an alien, but what he saw instead was a trim human shape, a woman in a blue jumpsuit.
    Immediately, he thought of what he’d seen the alien do at Wright-Pat, and of Morris.
    The object rose enough to spread the light into a pool a hundred feet across. Flynn and Diana were in that pool, and so was the alien, which now came walking toward them with the easy gait of absolute confidence.
    She stood before them, a woman of perhaps twenty-five. If he hadn’t seen her come out of a flying saucer, he would have said that she was human.
    She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face, and when she did, he saw in her blond arched eyebrows and her subtle, almost sensual smile, an unmistakable shadow of Abby.
    â€œHello,” she said, turning toward Diana. “You are Police Commander Glass?” There was in her lilting voice just the faintest trace of an accent, oddly Asian in so Caucasian-looking an individual.
    Diana saluted her.
    The woman’s gaze returned to him. “And you are Officer Carroll?”
    â€œI’m Flynn.”
    She wasn’t smiling now, far from it. Her eyes were glittering with something he could not mistake. She hated him.
    Diana said, “Officer Carroll, meet your new partner. This is Gt’n’aa. We’re going to call her Geri.”
    Geri extended her hand. Flynn stared at it.
    â€œFlynn?”
    â€œOh—yeah.” He took the coldest, strongest hand he had ever felt in his life. As he shook it, he could feel the power there, like living steel.
    â€œVery well,” Geri said, glancing off into the dark. “Shall we proceed?”
    Flynn’s mind was racing with questions, all of them unanswered, all of them urgent. But before he could speak, Diana and Geri moved off toward the edge of the runway. Simultaneously, the light went out and the ship ascended, swiftly disappearing into the night.
    A familiar sort of chime sounded. Flynn saw a Jeep Cherokee on the edge of the tarmac, revealed by its interior light. Diana had just unlocked it with its remote key. She went around to the driver’s side and got in.
    Flynn opened the passenger door.
    â€œBackseat,” she snapped.
    He got in. The alien got in the front beside Diana. They drove off toward the buildings of the Area 51 complex, through a desert night lit only by the distant stars and the beams of their headlights.

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
    FLYNN SAT silently in the Jeep, fighting back confused feelings of hatred and longing. He was used to living in a reality that he didn’t quite understand, but not like this. This was too much.
    They came to the familiar Science Building 3, with its glass doors and its lobby lit with glaring neon. In the days of the Lockheed Skunk Works, this had been Lockheed’s on-site office building, two stories of cubbyholes now filled with exobiologists, alien ethicists, exopsychologists,